Carol Jean Vigil, 61, the first Native American woman to be elected as a state district judge in the United States, died Friday in Tesuque Pueblo, N.M. No cause of death was given.
“We made history. It’s a dream come true,” Vigil had said after she was elected to New Mexico’s 1st Judicial District in June 1998.
At her swearing-in ceremony, Vigil wore a black robe with beaded Pueblo Indian symbols of mountains, lightning, clouds and rain embroidered on the shoulders. She also was affiliated with Isleta Pueblo.
Vigil’s decision upholding state court jurisdiction over tort claims for personal injury filed by patrons of tribal gaming operations was hotly disputed, and all the pueblos opposed the ruling.
“She did what she thought was right and she was ultimately upheld by the state Supreme Court,” said Santa Fe attorney Bryant Rogers.
Janet Jagan, 88, a Chicago native who became Guyana’s first white president and first female president, has died, a government official said.
She died Saturday at a state-run hospital in Georgetown, Guyana, of an abdominal aneurism, said Health Minister Leslie Ramsammy.
Jagan, a Jewish woman and a naturalized Guyanese, was elected president of the English-speaking South American country in December 1997, succeeding her husband, Cheddi Jagan, who died earlier that year.
At 77, she was the first white president of a country whose politics are polarized between its majority Guyanese of Indian descent — the backbone of her ruling party — and Afro-Guyanese, supporters of the opposition People’s National Congress.
Opposition leaders accused her government of racism. Jagan, in turn, claimed the opposition was trying to destabilize her government.
Citing reduced energy and stamina after suffering a mild heart attack, Jagan stepped down in August 1999, less than two years after taking office.
Arnold Meri, 89, a decorated Red Army veteran charged with genocide for deporting hundreds of his Estonian countrymen to Siberia in 1949, died Friday. He was 89.
Meri, a former Communist Party official and the cousin of the late Estonian President Lennart Meri, died at his home in Tallinn, Estonia, his family said Saturday.
In 2007, Estonian prosecutors charged Meri with genocide, claiming he oversaw the roundup and deportation of 251 civilians on the island of Hiiumaa, 90 miles west of Tallinn, in March 1949.
During that month, Soviet authorities organized large deportations in Estonia and its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania of people considered to be enemies of the Soviet Union.
During his trial, Meri acknowledged taking part in the deportations but pleaded not guilty to genocide, claiming he was just carrying out orders as a civil servant. The case had not been completed at the time of his death.
Denver Post wire services
